"Hello!" said the stranger, vaguely. "I seem to have----" He broke off, and his lips smiled. It was a friendly, understanding smile, and the girl, fighting hard the shy impulse to drop his shoulders, and flee into the kind masking of the bushes, was in a measure reassured. "You must hev fell offen the rock," she enlightened. "I think I might have fallen into worse circumstances," replied the unknown. "I reckon you kin set up after a little." "Yes, of course." The man suddenly realized that although he was quite comfortable as he was, he could scarcely expect to remain permanently in the support of her bent arm. He attempted to prop himself on his hurt hand, and relaxed with a twinge of extreme pain. The color, which had begun to creep back into his cheeks, left them again, and his lips compressed themselves tightly to bite off an exclamation of suffering. "Thet thar left arm air busted," announced the young woman, quietly. "Ye've got ter be heedful." Had one of her own men hurt himself, and behaved stoically, it would have been mere matter of course; but her eyes mirrored a pleased surprise at the stranger's good-natured nod and his quiet refusal to give expression to pain. It relieved her of the necessity for contempt. "I'm afraid," apologized the painter, "that I've been a great deal of trouble to you." Her lips and eyes were sober as she replied. "I reckon thet's all right." "And what's worse, I've got to be more trouble. Did you see anything of a brown mule?" She shook her head. "He must have wandered off. May I ask to whom I'm indebted for this first aid to the injured?" "I don't know what ye means." She had propped him against the rocks, and sat near-by, looking into his face with almost disconcerting steadiness; her solemn-pupiled eyes were unblinking, unsmiling. Unaccustomed to the gravity of the mountaineer in the presence of strangers, he feared that he had offended her. Perhaps his form of speech struck her as affected. "Why, I mean who are you?" he laughed. "I hain't nobody much. I jest lives over yon." "But," insisted the man, "surely you have a name." She nodded. "Hit's Sally." "Then, Miss Sally, I want to thank you." Once more she nodded, and, for the first time, let her eyes drop, while she sat nursing her knees. Finally, she glanced up, and asked with plucked-up courage: "Stranger, what mout yore name be?" "Lescott--George Lescott." "How'd ye git hurt?" He shook his head. "I was painting--up there," he said; "and I guess I got too absorbed in the work. I stepped backward to look at the canvas, and forgot where the edge was. I stepped too far." "Hit don't hardly pay a man ter walk backward in these hyar mountings," she told him. The painter looked covertly up to see if at last he had discovered a flash of humor. He had the idea that her lips would shape themselves rather fascinatingly in a smile, but her pupils mirrored no mirth. She had spoken in perfect seriousness.